In Excel, UNDO/REDO is grayed out. How can I turn it back on?

[DeerMusic]

My Excel 2003 undo and redo buttons (the icons and in the menu) are grayed
out and unavailable. What could cause that? How can I make the them active
again? This happens in both existing and new spreadsheets. Thanks.

 

[Mike H]

Hi,

The undo stack can be reset by running a macro or saving the file, could one
of these be the cause?

Mike

 

[Dave Peterson]

There are lots of things that can reset the undo/redo stacks.

You could have run a macro (or an event macro could have fired).

You could have saved the workbook.

There's a setting in the windows registry that tells excel how many undo levels
to keep track of--maybe it was set to 0.

xl2k and above
XL: How to Modify the Number of Undo Levels
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211922

xl97
XL97: How to Modify the Number of Undo Levels
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=162944

 

[SD Matthews]

I too have this problem, but editing my Registry failed to solve it on my
machine.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Are you sure you changed the correct key/value?

I too have this problem, but editing my Registry failed to solve it on my
machine.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Do you have any addins that could be causing trouble?

Chip Pearson has some notes on how to diagnose startup errors:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

And Jan Karel Pieterse has more notes:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/StartupProblems.asp

Essentially, you'll turn off all the addins/startup workbooks and then open
excel. And then turn on each addin (closing and reopening) one at a time to
find the culprit.